Transcripts
1. Introduction : What's up? My name is Braden mister. I'm an artist, YouTuber, and I make content, the Internet of things. I'll be instructor for this one. Here we are. Number
four of a sudden series set that I am making where
we focus on Andrew Loomis, his method for trying portraits. Now you can use the lumen
method for most in the medium. But in this class we are
going to be focusing solely on hatching and crosshatching with
sketching pencils. So what to expect? In this one? I'm going to be
taking you through and showing you how you can very easily draw the perfect circle
every time with a compass. And then from there, taking your sketch
pencil and identifying the side plane and identifying
your vertical axis. Once that's established, you
can draw out your hairline, your brow line, the
bottom of your nose, and that will enable you to identify the
bottom of your chin. Once that's drawn out, you can branch off and draw your neck and of
course, the shoulders. That is the foundation. Once that foundation
is established, the rest is actually
surprisingly easy because you can
punch in the eyes, the nose, the mouth, your hair. And then you can of course hatch away and bring out
the underlying form of your subjects
features such as the muscles and do the
cheekbones and whatnot. We are going to be
discussing the value scale, the difference in different
line qualities and weights. All of those things. I hope that you are ready to rock and roll
because I have this broken down into six
different lessons and all about anywhere from
two to four minutes each. They're actually fairly quick. So if you find yourself getting overwhelmed, don't do that. Whenever I get overwhelmed, I tried to remember Marcus
Aurelius is stoic quote, where he says, confine
yourself to the present. I find that if you can do that, you can draw most anything. That's what to expect and
hope to see you in class.
2. Step (1) Drawing out your Loomis Head: Okay, so we've got our campus and I think we're going to sketch
this one out in green. Why not? Okay, so we take our campus
and we set it to a two. And we want to place the needle right in the middle
of the paper here. There's really no
put in our circle. And then from there we're
gonna look at our subject. We're going to look
where those eyes are. Drawn or oval,
something like this. Something like this.
And this of course, is that side plane
of our subject, and here's our vertical axis. And of course I like
to put a little plane there for the temple. Then we're just going to
pull our hair line over. And then of course we
have our horizontal axis here on our side plane. We're going to pull this over. That is the brow line
and above the eyes. And then here is the bottom
of the nose roughly. Then once we've established
though is we want to identify our center line right at the
center, our subject's face. So I'm going to pull this down and then pull down
right about here, because the subject is
looking slightly up, that Jen is going to
be a little shorter. And so now what
we're gonna do is we're going to pull this over. And we just want to draw out the cheekbone there
on the right side of the subject's face. And you can do this rather
than drawing the lines straight up like you would
just a normal luminous head, you can start to implement
the features that you see in your subject, right? Because remember, the Loomis
head is meant to be a guide. It's not absolute,
not by any means, so don't think of it as such. Then here we've got a
little drop shadow. More or less actually
a plane is what it is with the shadow on it. So we want to just draw this out and then we got
some ropes here. Let's just draw the robes. Why not? Okay, this is pretty
much the Loomis head. This is where we're
going to start and we're going to
move on to lesson two. And we're going to start
punching in some features.
3. Step (2) Drawing your Eye and Placing Nose: Alright, so listen
to, now that we have, are luminous head drawn out, we're going to start
drawing out the eye. And remember that the brown line is more or less a guide for you. So what I'm going to
do is I'm referring to my reference photo and
we're just going to start drawing out the eye here. We're going to start from
the top without brow sits, and we're going to
work our way down. The biggest thing when you're using Sketch pencils
such as this or just sketching with a graphite or a charcoal pencil is
to go nice and lay. Use a very light
pressure control. And then that way,
and that allows you to retrieve high
values if necessary, and lower your values
if need be as well. So what I'm doing here is I'm just pulling down
right along that center line. And I am establishing the
right side of the nose. And then from there, I know that the corner of the subjects, I starts right about here. So I'm just gonna
pull that over. Then. I'm going to just
pull the bottom as well. Boom, just like that. Now, we can start to draw
out the eyelid here. Nothing crazy. And don't
let eyes stress you out. Don't let them overwhelm you. We're just sketching
and we're building muscle memory with
these lessons, That's what we're doing. You should be
sketching many heads, hundreds even should have
fun while you do it. Absolutely. So now here what
I'm doing is I'm just defining this line. I am thickening up
my line quality. Obviously, if you've been
following these lessons, you already know
that line quality is the relative thinness
or thickness of a line. Typically, the heavier the
pressure control you use, the thicker that
quality gets, um, and of course, the
thicker equality becomes, the darker the line weight. For those of you
that don't know, line weight is just
how light or dark a line appears and there is a correlation between
line weight and quality. Quality is the thickness. Weight is the lightness
or darkness of outline. Okay. Then right here
I'm just gonna go ahead and kinda
give this eyeball some dimension and we're going
to move into lesson three.
4. Step (3) Drawing your Hair, Nose, and Mouth: Okay, So less than three
and this one we're going to be sketching out the hair. We're going to draw out the nose and we're gonna
begin on the mouth. So a lot of times
people will ask, well, where do I start
with a portrait? Honestly, there is no
right or wrong way. There's just your
way, or should I say, the way in which you as the
artist feel most comfortable? So here, for example,
when I'm doing is now that I have
the subject I and the beginning of the nose established and I have
started throughout the hair. I'm just gonna go
ahead and I'm going to complete the hairline here. Notice the underlying
Loomis head, right? There are critics of
this method that say, Well, it's not finite enough. I disagree. I like a certain
level of creativity, of creative freedom,
if you will. Where if I don't like something, I can kinda make it my own. And that is exactly what
this method allows for. Alright? And of course with sketching, the more you work on a specific area and the
more detail will come out. Alright, so here what I'm doing, given the angle of the
subject's nose here, there is very much a shadow plane on the
bottom of the nose. And that's just because
with most portraits, the light source that you are working with is
coming from the top. Alright? So because of that, the
way the light casts, there's the bottom of the nose. Usually not always, but usually is going to
be of a lower value. When it comes to
the value scale. Complete white is what
we call a high-value. Complete dark is what
we call a low value. And then of course
we have all of our different tones in between. So when you hear me say lower the value,
retrieving a high-value. This is what I mean. This is how we are using the value scale to work
to our benefit here. So a lot of times the cool
thing about hatching, crosshatching, that is the
method that I'm using here. This is typical hatching
and crosshatching was actually derived
in the Middle Ages. I'm sure it was probably
used before that, but that's really when
it came into prominence. At least in the art world. So much of the time, a lot of
these techniques were used. They just were not published in such a manner as to
where they could be referenced by future artists, future generations, if you will. So little history for it. But yes, so now that I have that nose drawn out a
little bit more, I can start to
draw out the lips. Now, lips can be tricky, but typically the
upper lip, again, given the nature of the light
source being from the top, your upper lip will be
darker than your bottom lip. Bottom lips tend to
protrude out just slightly more than
your upper lip. Your upper lip is almost
tucked, if you will. And so because of that, your lower lip will
have a higher value, your upper lip will
have a lower value. So just be aware of that. So much of drawing portraits, even sketching like this, is being aware of
that light source, especially where it
is generally right. Because like I said,
the majority of the time that light source
is coming from the top. So just be aware
of that and let's move on to lesson four.
5. Step (4) Drawing your Second Eye and Hair : Alright, moving on,
listen for now, this is where we
place the other eye. So what I like to do is
I like to start from the corner of the
mouth and then I'll go up and right about there. Right about there.
That's gonna be the corner of the other eye. All right, so then what
I like to do is I'd like to stem from the top of the eye that I've
already drawn out, make a little dot, and then
that will be the peak, that will be the top
of my other eye. This right here. This
single action in drawing a portrait can be
the most difficult simply because all of a sudden we're dealing with symmetry, not perfect symmetry, okay? 99% of faces that you will
draw our many things, but they are not symmetrical. Okay? You will draw faces that
are almost symmetrical. But as an organic life form, most of us, most all of us do
not have symmetrical faces. So that's good for
artists, right? Because symmetry is one of
the hardest things to draw. It's one of the reasons
why I very, very rarely, with the exception
of the sphere, is symmetry not found in nature. So this is how I like to
draw the other I am right. Now. Then of course,
once we have the eyeball itself drawn out, we can draw in the eyelid. And then we can start to
work on our shading, right? We can start to beef up the bottom of the brown because the light is casting
it from the top. So the majority of the subject's forehead
is a higher value, which we can start
to punch in with a very light pressure control. And then of course
we can go over that same area if we need to lower the value over
and over and over again. The thing that I like about hatching and
crosshatching such as this in regards to
sketching out a portrait, is that it gives you a
lot of, a lot of freedom. You can go over an area over
and over and over again. You don't necessarily
have to one and done type deal like you
do with say like ink. But now that we have
that I drawn out, we can start to identify that hairline on this
side of the face. And then of course, once the
hairline is established, we can punch in the ear here. Now, I've mentioned this in other lessons that are
a part of this series. But the ear always will go
in the bottom right quadrant of the side plane
when your subject is looking to slightly to the right or completely
to the right. And of course the
opposite is true if they are looking
to their left. So just keep that in mind. Starting to look somewhat
like a portrait. So that's good. And then here
what I'm doing is I'm just going through and I'm
kind of identifying how that hair flows, right? The L, M, when it comes to hair, especially in sculptures, they tend to have a very
solid dimension about them. And of course, there's
definite form. Form is the illusion of
three-dimensional on paper. Shape is obviously
two-dimensional, just like the paper is, at least when it comes
to actual space. Alright, so let's move
on to lesson five. And we'll start drawing
out some underlying form.
6. Step (5) Drawing your Underlying Form and Shading: Alright, so less than five, this is where it starts
to get really fun. This is where I want
you to start paying attention to your
pressure control, right? So obviously start off light. But remember how I
was saying and listen for when it comes to drawing, what separates amateur
Artists from great artists? Is there a thorough
understanding of the difference
between shape and form? Now, understanding
it is not enough. You need to have technical
application that of course accomplishes
the task at hand. Now, from here, what I like to do when it comes to bringing out that underlying forum is I
like to start from the edges. So right here, I've identified roughly where that break
is between the casting of light from our light
source and then of course, the bottom of the chin. Now here I forgot to
put in my cheek planes, so we can use these cheek planes and we pull up just like this. Nice and light one way. Alright. So much of the time
when you're trying to convey the jaw line of a portrait using this
type of technique. This is how you accomplish that. You want to start off light
and you want to pull one way. See here for example, subject has a fairly
prominent chin. So this is how we're going
to bring out that chin. Slightly lower value here. Okay, So we're going to use a slightly heavier
pressure control. That lower lips, very much
kind of tucked in here. Of course there is a
break of a high values. We want to make sure
we maintain that. No, I'm just going to
pull up like this. Let's pull up, pull up,
pull up, pull up, pull up. And tried to
identify the planes. How does the face flow
the muscles underneath? And this right here
is one of the reasons why I'm starting you guys out drawing sculptures
because I don't want you to worry
about details yet. We will get to that. But here I just just form. That's all I want
you to focus on. But go through your
sketch at this point and start to build up your lower values wherever
those values are, wherever you see them. Okay? See I'm kinda lowering
this value because it is much lower in the
reference photo. Going back through e-mail, this was the first thing
that I drew on this side. I'm lowering the value
on that brown line. Okay. Then here I'm lowering
the shadow on the chin. You can hatch, meaning you pull your sketch pencil across the paper one way
just like this. Or you can cross hatch, right where you pull one
way and then you cross it and you come one
way, the other way. It's up to you. Whatever you feel most
comfortable with. The whole point of
these classes is that I give you the baseline, right? The basics, and then of course
what you do with those, that's totally up to you. But this is how we can start to accomplish the shadow on
the bottom of the chin. But be careful not
to overwork it. So the cool thing about this method in the
fact that a high value is complete white is when
you do have areas that have a ton of light on them and they have
a super high value. You don't even
have to touch them with your pencil.
Leave them alone. And then that way you will
maximize contrast, right? You will effectively utilize the value scale to its
fullest potential. Alright, let's move on to
last lesson. Lesson six.
7. Step (6) Final Thoughts & Details: Alright, so now what we're doing is we're just
getting a rough estimate. What this neck looks
like, sketching it out. Notice how we're going
nice and light it first. Because we can
always go back over areas that need to
have a lower value. But I like to cross
hatch like this. Kind of darken her up here
on the backend of the neck. Now, the biggest thing
with sketching like this, and this is very true
of multiple mediums. This is true in painting. Charcoal, graphite. Almost every medium. The more time you spend
on a specific piece, the more detail will
come out, right? And this is something
that's true. Especially with this type of
technique with hatching and crosshatching is you can go through just like
this, like right here. I'm going to thicken
up this quality, thicken up the quality here. And of course, that also
darkens the weight of the line. Alright? But in, in plate with it, right? Pull your pencil across
the paper different ways, vertical, horizontal, diagonal. And just really start
to get a sense of what your pencil does to the paper. And this is one of the
reasons why we are doing seven different classes with
seven different references so that you can really get a thorough understanding by
the time we're done with this series as to what sketching entails using
different reference photos. Now, obviously, we're not going to be winning any
awards with these sketches, but that's not the point. We're not worried about
recognition at this phase. What we are worried
about is building up muscle memory and the understanding of how to approach drawing
these portraits. So much of the time, it's not necessarily the drawing that
people get flustered width. It's where do I even start? Because obviously
there's many steps to drawing a portrait. But just like anything in life, it is a very much a process. There is a right way and
a wrong way depending on what you want your final
product to look like. And so just go through, sketch these out and just use different
pressure controls. And it put in as much or as
little detail as you want. I cannot wait to see
your guises projects. Please make sure that you upload them so that we can talk about
them. We can look at them. Obviously, other students can appreciate your work as well. And stay happy. Stay healthy. And remember, never stop trying.
Messer Creations, Artist | Author | YouTuber
